Hi Ruben, thanks for reviewing my MG Soft Nylon Guitar. Your demo at 17:57 sounds great, and that's the kind of playing it is designed for, not so much legato/lead playing (hence no vibrato which sounded naff on this specific guitar anyway) but something you missed - it does offer slurs (hammer ons and pull-offs) which are achieved when overlapping notes. I wanted to avoid creating another generic guitar vst and instead focus on a certain intimate vibe, using a specific guitar for soft playing...which I believe it does very well. Anyway thanks again for trying it out!
From this demo, I'd say that my favourites are Picked Nylon, Nylon Sky and AGL. But we have to consider the price also, and for that reason my overall favourite for its value has to be Picked Nylon, which is half price at the moment (Summer of Sound) and also included in the Komplete 14 Ultimate bundle. PS: great playing!
Such a great job, Ruben! I know you know about Orange Tree Samples Nylon. It’s great like these here! Also, the thing about RealGuitar series is that they sound super great when programmed. With their wealth of controls, they can be drawn in to sound like a real session guitarist. However, playing them live can leave more to be desired.✌🏾
Great comparison and very nice playing (as usual 🙂) One thing to note however is the fact that „Nylon Sky“ requires Omnisphere… i.e. it can‘t be bought and run on its own if you don’t already have Omnisphere, since there’s no free „player“ (akin to Kontakt Player) - at least to my knowledge. So, for „non Omnisphere owners“, Nylon Sky is almost prohibitively expensive.
Great job! By the way, to avoid SysEx Data (by drug-n-drop from VSTi to Cubase) just uncheck Preferences-MIDI-MIDI File-Import Options-Auto Dissolve Format 0
Nylon Rustique - Musical Sampling’s brand new addition to their rather wonderful series of ‘no-nonsense/keyswitch/settings’ instruments - includes a velocity based triple-transition legato and is in my opinion a steal at $69 (intro price until may 22). Worth checking out the demo and showcase videos, if the premiss sounds interesting. 👍🏻
Should check out Orange Tree Samples Evolution Modern Nylon. All their guitars sound nice and seem very controllable. I only have Picked Nylon right now the same one you show here but I know about this company because their Django Jazz guitar is near the top of my list for next buys. It matches perfectly with Josh Bell Violin for crazy gypsy music.
It’s troubling that so many of these seem to articulate using what guitarists would call rest strokes and virtually no brush strokes. A master guitarist will use the appropriate technique to bring the musical texture to life. Some of these samples show really lovely tone. Loved your playing and teaching!
Of the libraries you threw into the ring, I think Modartt's is the best, because it's very flexible due to the physical modelling and you can achieve any sound quality you'd like. In general, I'm a big fan of Modartt. If we exclude playability and go by which nylon guitar library you can do the most with, then I simply have to name the "Concert Guitar" by "VSL", because it simply contains the most articulations and playing styles. It is intuitively the worst to play, but with MIDI programming you can simply get one hundred percent convincing mock-ups. It was also sampled absolutely dry, which gives you absolute freedom in sound design. Articulations include long notes, any short notes (portato/tenuto, staccato, etc.), legato (including hammer-off/-on, so playable trills are also possible), sul pont., flautando, etouffée, Bartók pizzicato, vibrato/non-vibrato (for all articulations except staccato), natural and artificial harmonics, scratches, chords (non- and arpeggiated), playable repetitions in different tempi, but also sampled repetitions in different tempi (and additionally they are stretchable), different strokes on the body, trills, tremolo, scratches and other effects. I have probably forgotten something else. As I said, you can't play this library with all its articulations so well live, but what you can get out of this library with MIDI programming is a dream!
As someone who is severely lacking in keyboard skills, I really appreciate your input for MIDI-based use! I'm currently diving into how to program lifelike cello performances, but once I get the urge to dive deep into guitar I'll be sure to remember that name.
I came close to getting Nylon Sky, but the velocity-based slide-ins took me back to the Roland “rompler” days. That limited my ability to get a soft slide-in where I want it. Plus some of the vibratos sound artificial at (like at22:05). I do love the tone and noises that help it out. Wish there were down slides / glissando. I think my preference of these presented here is Ample. Considering buying since it’s 30% now, but I already have Acou6tics which has a nice nylon guitar, but difficult to use.
AmpleSound has two "Note Repeat" key switches to help with playing a Tremolo, D6 and E6 Not ideal position imo and really wonder why there is no Tremolo mode in Play or Riffer when the Tab mode can actually play it well enough.
Nylon Sky is multi sampled on every note. To think that it wasn't based on the note range extending below bottom E is an incorrect assumption. Turn down the realism knob on nylon sky and turn off effects for a sound as clean as Ample sound's one.
@@hifimidi you honestly believe that spectrasonics would try save a few hours skimping on some notes? Not worth their reputation. They have the time, money and inclination. But then I'm an Eric Persing fanboy and you're an amplesound fanboy 😁. Amplesound don't sample every note. I say that based on nothing, like you did 😐🤣
@@banterbanter no need to get heated. I'm not an Ample Sound fanboy. I'm saying it based on the fact that the notes continue way below and above the range of the instrument--definitely resampled in that case. So it makes me wonder if they resample within the range. Totally justified and logical conclusion. They do NOT sample every string and fret. However, I do believe the dynamic sampling is pretty high, so you get lots of dynamic layers. It still sounds great, so at the end of the day, it still makes your music sound better.
@@hifimidi I’m not heated lol - think maybe you’ve read @jason comment? Though he was just jesting too. No heat. I’ll email spectrasonics and get back to you. We’re both just guessing:) Cheers 👍🏽
re vibrato on the MG Soft Nylon: vibrato isn't among the front-panel controls or assigned to AT or MW, and i agree that it should have been. but it is easily accessible within Kontakt's under-the-hood editor -- just create an LFO in the Modulation section, choose intensity and speed, then assign it to cc:01 for MW (or to aftertouch). in any case, usually create my own because i prefer it to the stock ones on most plugins.
Thanks and big thumb up a lot for the smart review. Unfortunately, as a classical guitarist, none of these VSTI satisfy me : they really sound like VSTI, not like a real guitar. Guitar is the only instrument that gives my this unsatisfaction as a matter of VSTI...
32:57 Ample themselves made a tutorial on how to achieve tremolo a long time ago. It was one of their early videos on their products. But I don't think it was good enough. Or at least I couldn't manage it with the Ample Guitar M. Tremolo might be the feature I want the most on these guitars.
A lot of people want tremolo. Me too. I've never heard a good tremolo made from just repeating notes on any VI. Ample Sound achieved a beautiful tremolo on their Zheng and Pipa VIs. I hope in the future they will implement it into their older guitars, but that would require some major overhaul of their sound engine.
The link to my website is in the description. www.hifimidi.com The courses are in the main page. If you move you mouse to the top, you’ll see the option to buy all in one.
Nylon Sky is pretty sweet these days. But I always end up reaching for good ol’ Orange Tree Evolution Modern Nylon for lead nylon guitar. It just sounds sooooo goooood. Except Modartt (didn’t know about) and Soft Nylon, I use all these, even RealGuitar which hasn’t updated their Nylon sample set in nearly 20 years 🙄. You never know which tone will fit the song you’re working on.
Is.there anyway to get the Ample guitar to oscillate or tremer using a key switch in Reaper ( DAW ? As I have said before I do not use a midi keyboard or controller.
Great, many thanks. I only would ask you to have a little better clarity in the sound of your voice as you explain. Maybe equalization can be improved to understand better yor explanations.
26:9 , honestly most of the sounds are quite usable as a guitar in the back ground, but that tremolo is nothing like a classical guitar tremolo, it sounds more like to mandolines and a guitar playing the base..
Great video..One question tho, are you a guitarist or pianist? You are playing all this so good and natural on the keyboard.. Average users can achieve the same guality as you?
Since im not a piano player and have no patience to draw in midi data into studio 1. Im a guitar player and thought about getting a midi guitar controller to use on amplesound. I downloaded the amplesound demo to try out. I wonder if its worth it...
Can these virtual instrument plugins be used if my input was from an acoustic guitar. I generally lay acoustic guitar tracks but I am looking for something that could take my acoustic guitar performance and drag a virtual instrument to the track and create a specific guitar sound. For example I don't own a nylon string guitar but think my track would benefit from a nylon sound when I tracked using a steel string. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I play guitar NOT piano!
In order to do that you would either need a MIDI guitar like Jam Origin or a MIDI converter for guitar. Search Google for either you will find a lot of results. I've not used either, but I suspect it will not be as good as one would hope. I imagine you will run into two main problems and that is polyphonic tones (multiple notes at once) and latency. Using a keyboard which is designed and optimized for midi there is still an audible delay between key press and output. This adds another complicated layer that has to be processed which will increase latency I feel by a lot. Also, I don't know that it will record both midi and audio at the same time, meaning you might only get one or the other.
These are all no more than 13 in a dozen toysounds, all in common a complete lacking of the smallest reference to real classical guitarsound or touché. If it were about imitating the taste of plain sugar these examples don't even come closer than to plastic sugar. No problem at all because these are appearently just serving "guitarperformance" in deliberately artificial context in any respect. Already the fact of playing keyboard ergonomics is lightyears away from touching strings. L' Art de toucher le Clavecin, to speak with Couperin, counts for any art of real instrument performance. Imitating such Art synthetically demands much better understanding and processing sound. But of course these will do fine where people prefer to make music their way. It's a free world, where sugar is democratically apreciated as good taste too.
Hi Ruben, thanks for reviewing my MG Soft Nylon Guitar. Your demo at 17:57 sounds great, and that's the kind of playing it is designed for, not so much legato/lead playing (hence no vibrato which sounded naff on this specific guitar anyway) but something you missed - it does offer slurs (hammer ons and pull-offs) which are achieved when overlapping notes. I wanted to avoid creating another generic guitar vst and instead focus on a certain intimate vibe, using a specific guitar for soft playing...which I believe it does very well. Anyway thanks again for trying it out!
It sounds beautiful!
It does sound incredible. I have seen incredible reviews on UA-cam of the soft MG and I would say it is truly unique in it's own right
Ilya Efimov's Nylon Guitar is an old one, but it still holds up very well!
I can't get a hold of them. I wonder if they're in Russia.
Ilya Efimov is truly incredible.
From this demo, I'd say that my favourites are Picked Nylon, Nylon Sky and AGL. But we have to consider the price also, and for that reason my overall favourite for its value has to be Picked Nylon, which is half price at the moment (Summer of Sound) and also included in the Komplete 14 Ultimate bundle. PS: great playing!
Ample wins. My favorite to use
Ample great but the strummed always renders out of time
I own most of these. One you need to check out is Is Ilya Efimov nylon guitar. Its been out years and still one of my favourite Guitar VSTs.
Such a great job, Ruben! I know you know about Orange Tree Samples Nylon. It’s great like these here! Also, the thing about RealGuitar series is that they sound super great when programmed. With their wealth of controls, they can be drawn in to sound like a real session guitarist. However, playing them live can leave more to be desired.✌🏾
I’ll ask for a license. I’m sure it’s a great VI.
You missed the orange tree nylon guitars
Thank you for this, your time and effort to bring us quality samples and the works.
Great comparison and very nice playing (as usual 🙂)
One thing to note however is the fact that „Nylon Sky“ requires Omnisphere… i.e. it can‘t be bought and run on its own if you don’t already have Omnisphere, since there’s no free „player“ (akin to Kontakt Player) - at least to my knowledge.
So, for „non Omnisphere owners“, Nylon Sky is almost prohibitively expensive.
Great job! By the way, to avoid SysEx Data (by drug-n-drop from VSTi to Cubase) just uncheck Preferences-MIDI-MIDI File-Import Options-Auto Dissolve Format 0
Nylon Rustique - Musical Sampling’s brand new addition to their rather wonderful series of ‘no-nonsense/keyswitch/settings’ instruments - includes a velocity based triple-transition legato and is in my opinion a steal at $69 (intro price until may 22). Worth checking out the demo and showcase videos, if the premiss sounds interesting. 👍🏻
I’ll check it out😊
Should check out Orange Tree Samples Evolution Modern Nylon. All their guitars sound nice and seem very controllable. I only have Picked Nylon right now the same one you show here but I know about this company because their Django Jazz guitar is near the top of my list for next buys. It matches perfectly with Josh Bell Violin for crazy gypsy music.
It’s troubling that so many of these seem to articulate using what guitarists would call rest strokes and virtually no brush strokes. A master guitarist will use the appropriate technique to bring the musical texture to life. Some of these samples show really lovely tone. Loved your playing and teaching!
SketchSampling has few nylon guitars that are really good too - although their intentions are mostly Latin music
Sketch Nylon by sketchsamples
I'm surprised you didn't include "Sketch Nylon"
The best there is!
Can you make a video on playing guitar in a keyboard?
I made one years ago but I’ll update since I’ve learn a lot since then.
@@hifimidi Your playing sounds honestly fantastic, very considerate of what's possible with the instrument too, sounds great on the AGL
For electric guitars, Soundprop electric di guitars I like the best. Plug in a overloud th-u preset and you’re off to the races.
Of the libraries you threw into the ring, I think Modartt's is the best, because it's very flexible due to the physical modelling and you can achieve any sound quality you'd like. In general, I'm a big fan of Modartt.
If we exclude playability and go by which nylon guitar library you can do the most with, then I simply have to name the "Concert Guitar" by "VSL", because it simply contains the most articulations and playing styles. It is intuitively the worst to play, but with MIDI programming you can simply get one hundred percent convincing mock-ups. It was also sampled absolutely dry, which gives you absolute freedom in sound design. Articulations include long notes, any short notes (portato/tenuto, staccato, etc.), legato (including hammer-off/-on, so playable trills are also possible), sul pont., flautando, etouffée, Bartók pizzicato, vibrato/non-vibrato (for all articulations except staccato), natural and artificial harmonics, scratches, chords (non- and arpeggiated), playable repetitions in different tempi, but also sampled repetitions in different tempi (and additionally they are stretchable), different strokes on the body, trills, tremolo, scratches and other effects. I have probably forgotten something else.
As I said, you can't play this library with all its articulations so well live, but what you can get out of this library with MIDI programming is a dream!
As someone who is severely lacking in keyboard skills, I really appreciate your input for MIDI-based use! I'm currently diving into how to program lifelike cello performances, but once I get the urge to dive deep into guitar I'll be sure to remember that name.
Ilya Efimov Nylon Guitar. There is no better sounding plugin. Made a long time ago, but still has no match.
I came close to getting Nylon Sky, but the velocity-based slide-ins took me back to the Roland “rompler” days. That limited my ability to get a soft slide-in where I want it. Plus some of the vibratos sound artificial at (like at22:05). I do love the tone and noises that help it out. Wish there were down slides / glissando. I think my preference of these presented here is Ample. Considering buying since it’s 30% now, but I already have Acou6tics which has a nice nylon guitar, but difficult to use.
Not surprising, since Eric Persing (founder of Spectrasonics) was doing sound design for Roland back in those days!
AmpleSound has two "Note Repeat" key switches to help with playing a Tremolo, D6 and E6
Not ideal position imo and really wonder why there is no Tremolo mode in Play or Riffer when the Tab mode can actually play it well enough.
Nylon Sky is multi sampled on every note. To think that it wasn't based on the note range extending below bottom E is an incorrect assumption.
Turn down the realism knob on nylon sky and turn off effects for a sound as clean as Ample sound's one.
I’d love to have the benefit of the doubt.
@@hifimidi you honestly believe that spectrasonics would try save a few hours skimping on some notes?
Not worth their reputation. They have the time, money and inclination.
But then I'm an Eric Persing fanboy and you're an amplesound fanboy 😁.
Amplesound don't sample every note.
I say that based on nothing, like you did 😐🤣
@@banterbanter Oh please Spectrasonics\Eric fanboy shut your mouth 💕💕 AmpleSound is all that AND a bag of Chips! ✨✨ Jason......Morin Unknown dude....
@@banterbanter no need to get heated. I'm not an Ample Sound fanboy. I'm saying it based on the fact that the notes continue way below and above the range of the instrument--definitely resampled in that case. So it makes me wonder if they resample within the range. Totally justified and logical conclusion. They do NOT sample every string and fret. However, I do believe the dynamic sampling is pretty high, so you get lots of dynamic layers. It still sounds great, so at the end of the day, it still makes your music sound better.
@@hifimidi I’m not heated lol - think maybe you’ve read @jason comment? Though he was just jesting too. No heat.
I’ll email spectrasonics and get back to you. We’re both just guessing:)
Cheers 👍🏽
I second Nylon Rustique. Looks really playable.
I would look at Efimov nylon gtr as well. That's my "go-to" instrument to this date, although it is it quite old. Cheers!
Nylon Sky
Ample wins for me.
re vibrato on the MG Soft Nylon: vibrato isn't among the front-panel controls or assigned to AT or MW, and i agree that it should have been. but it is easily accessible within Kontakt's under-the-hood editor -- just create an LFO in the Modulation section, choose intensity and speed, then assign it to cc:01 for MW (or to aftertouch). in any case, usually create my own because i prefer it to the stock ones on most plugins.
My favourites are Picked Nylon, Nylon Sky, Efimov and Gypsy
Vir2 also has a nylon guitar set, called Acou6tics, worth considering.
That’s another one that has to be drawn/programmed to get the best of it. It’s a lot to do if you play it live and want to get much authenticity.✌🏾
Thanks and big thumb up a lot for the smart review. Unfortunately, as a classical guitarist, none of these VSTI satisfy me : they really sound like VSTI, not like a real guitar. Guitar is the only instrument that gives my this unsatisfaction as a matter of VSTI...
Agl always.
When mixing you going to remove a lot of that bottom end to make it sit in the mix…pianteq sounds great for that
32:57 Ample themselves made a tutorial on how to achieve tremolo a long time ago. It was one of their early videos on their products. But I don't think it was good enough. Or at least I couldn't manage it with the Ample Guitar M. Tremolo might be the feature I want the most on these guitars.
A lot of people want tremolo. Me too. I've never heard a good tremolo made from just repeating notes on any VI. Ample Sound achieved a beautiful tremolo on their Zheng and Pipa VIs. I hope in the future they will implement it into their older guitars, but that would require some major overhaul of their sound engine.
hey i want buy your course, how can i buy?
The link to my website is in the description. www.hifimidi.com
The courses are in the main page. If you move you mouse to the top, you’ll see the option to buy all in one.
@@hifimidi are you going to run any sale?
Nylon Sky is pretty sweet these days. But I always end up reaching for good ol’ Orange Tree Evolution Modern Nylon for lead nylon guitar. It just sounds sooooo goooood.
Except Modartt (didn’t know about) and Soft Nylon, I use all these, even RealGuitar which hasn’t updated their Nylon sample set in nearly 20 years 🙄. You never know which tone will fit the song you’re working on.
Is.there anyway to get the Ample guitar to oscillate or tremer using a key switch in Reaper ( DAW ? As I have said before I do not use a midi keyboard or controller.
Great, many thanks. I only would ask you to have a little better clarity in the sound of your voice as you explain. Maybe equalization can be improved to understand better yor explanations.
26:9 , honestly most of the sounds are quite usable as a guitar in the back ground, but that tremolo is nothing like a classical guitar tremolo, it sounds more like to mandolines and a guitar playing the base..
the fret position on the Native Instruments Picked Nylon can be assgined to a MIDI cc, I tried it in my recent project
Great video..One question tho, are you a guitarist or pianist? You are playing all this so good and natural on the keyboard.. Average users can achieve the same guality as you?
Applied Acoustics Systems - Strum GS-2 also and Have Pattern
Omnisphere version sounds like it was played on keyboard…would never use that one.
Since im not a piano player and have no patience to draw in midi data into studio 1. Im a guitar player and thought about getting a midi guitar controller to use on amplesound. I downloaded the amplesound demo to try out. I wonder if its worth it...
AMPLE RULES!!!!!
Indigenous makes a couple. There's a free one that might fit well into this list.
Awesome
Agree!!
it's also worth checking out Sketch Nylon and Sketch D-Hole. both require a bit of tweaking, but the results are impressive
True Sketch Nylon is one of the best Nylon guitars I have ever seen
in my opinion the Native Instruments one sounds the most real.
Can these virtual instrument plugins be used if my input was from an acoustic guitar. I generally lay acoustic guitar tracks but I am looking for something that could take my acoustic guitar performance and drag a virtual instrument to the track and create a specific guitar sound. For example I don't own a nylon string guitar but think my track would benefit from a nylon sound when I tracked using a steel string. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I play guitar NOT piano!
In order to do that you would either need a MIDI guitar like Jam Origin or a MIDI converter for guitar. Search Google for either you will find a lot of results. I've not used either, but I suspect it will not be as good as one would hope. I imagine you will run into two main problems and that is polyphonic tones (multiple notes at once) and latency. Using a keyboard which is designed and optimized for midi there is still an audible delay between key press and output. This adds another complicated layer that has to be processed which will increase latency I feel by a lot. Also, I don't know that it will record both midi and audio at the same time, meaning you might only get one or the other.
why you do not include ornage tree evolution nylon?
My favorite is “ARIA Classical Guitarist”
first impressions Ample..will go through them again.... what a video...ty
less processed.... couldnt agree more..
Scetch Nylon by scetchsamples is awesome :)
perfectttttttttttt.Thanks.
No Orange Tree Samples ? A glaring omission.
I don’t have it. I’ll ask them for one.
Their Nylon is very good! Orange Tree Samples’ guitars are amazing!✌🏾
@@truthmanifestingtruth I love OTS. There are so many options out there, right now.
Thanks a lot!!! What you think about Ilya Efimov nylon guitar library?
The demos sound amazing. I get teach their company though. Probably because they’re in Russia.
I can’t believe I’m first comment
Congrats! You win… points in my heart!
Best to Worst:
1. Modartt Pianoteq - Classical Guitar
2. Real Guitar - Classic
3. Native Instruments - Picked Nylon
4. Ample Guitar Luther
5. MG - Soft Nylon Guitar
6. Omnisphere - Nylon Sky
These are all no more than 13 in a dozen toysounds, all in common a complete lacking of the smallest reference to real classical guitarsound or touché. If it were about imitating the taste of plain sugar these examples don't even come closer than to plastic sugar. No problem at all because these are appearently just serving "guitarperformance" in deliberately artificial context in any respect. Already the fact of playing keyboard ergonomics is lightyears away from touching strings. L' Art de toucher le Clavecin, to speak with Couperin, counts for any art of real instrument performance. Imitating such Art synthetically demands much better understanding and processing sound. But of course these will do fine where people prefer to make music their way. It's a free world, where sugar is democratically apreciated as good taste too.